got all the way to their trailer. This offer wasn’t completely altruistic. I’d learned hardly anything from them and hoped to give it one last try at the trailer park. They seemed grateful for the offer, rather than suspicious of my motives, so perhaps they weren’t hiding anything. How they could not hate their late mentor I couldn’t imagine, but they didn’t seem to. Polya had cried quietly all the way to the university, murmuring his name from time to time, while Irina, in the back seat, patted her on the shoulder and said occasionally, “Maybe Boris Ignatenko just forget to give us money. We asking tonight.”
“Then maybe we having no job either.”
“What good is job with no food or gas?” Irina retorted, and Polya began to cry again.
As I followed them to the trailer park, which was on the Westside but not in any area I’d visited, I wondered what they were saying to each other in the privacy of their rattletrap vehicle. Probably deciding how to get rid of me as quickly as possible.
Imagine my surprise when we arrived. They invited me in for tea. Their trailer was as rusty as their car, with a dripping evaporative cooler sagging from a window outside and shabby Salvation Army-genre furniture inside. However, it was clean. It looked dreadful but rigorously scrubbed. The tea, served in jelly glasses, was hot and very, very strong, but I managed to sip it, no small triumph when the glass was blistering my fingers and the liquid my tongue.
On further questioning, both girls insisted that Vladik had no enemies. As for friends, they suggested that he must have been friendly with his fellow professors, and each girl named several with whom she had classes. Then Irina had an inspiration. “Boris Stepanovich lgnatenko. He and Vladik knowing each other in Russia before, always talking and drinking vodka when Vladik coming to club.”
“They are being business partners of Brazen Babes,” Polya added. “Boris Stepanovich is knowing if Vladik having other friends. You asking Boris Stepanovich. He not knowing Vladik maybe be murder. Maybe you telling him, not us? Is bad we must telling him we need money for eating and gasses. He seeming happy to have our dancing money. Maybe not liking give some back.”
“How much do you make?” I asked.
Both girls shrugged. “Money for dancing,” said Irina.
“Money men is tucking in our strings,” said Polya. “Is much money, I think. What is called tips. Pretty soon maybe we have paying back and keeping it.”
I really didn’t want to go to a place called Brazen Babes to talk to Mr. Boris Stepanovich Ignatenko. My only contact with exotic dancing had been with a tassel twirler in New Orleans, who sat down at a table full of chemists (and me) and chatted while she drank hot buttered rum at our expense. The rum was my suggestion, and I believe she was reprimanded for not ordering champagne.
Having extracted all the information I could, I thanked the girls for their hospitality, they thanked me for “food and fishes,” and I left.
I didn’t do too well getting back into familiar territory, but once I did, I decided to make a last stop in the day’s investigation. I needed to check out the alibi of Professor Brandon Collins at Jerk’s, not a very prepossessing name, but he had felt that it matched his status at the time he went there.
Jerk’s seemed a presentable enough place if you like neon beer signs and flocks of TVs turned to sports channels. There were few customers that time of afternoon, and it was hard to imagine it full of reeling drunks, which was how the geology professor had described himself. I did note that the customers at the bar were students, or so I assumed. If that was so at night as well, Professor Collins had set a very bad example for young men of college age. I went to the cash register and asked the waitress manning it if she had been here on Saturday night around midnight. She hadn’t, but said the boss would have been. He was
“Then maybe we having no job either.”
“What good is job with no food or gas?” Irina retorted, and Polya began to cry again.
As I followed them to the trailer park, which was on the Westside but not in any area I’d visited, I wondered what they were saying to each other in the privacy of their rattletrap vehicle. Probably deciding how to get rid of me as quickly as possible.
Imagine my surprise when we arrived. They invited me in for tea. Their trailer was as rusty as their car, with a dripping evaporative cooler sagging from a window outside and shabby Salvation Army-genre furniture inside. However, it was clean. It looked dreadful but rigorously scrubbed. The tea, served in jelly glasses, was hot and very, very strong, but I managed to sip it, no small triumph when the glass was blistering my fingers and the liquid my tongue.
On further questioning, both girls insisted that Vladik had no enemies. As for friends, they suggested that he must have been friendly with his fellow professors, and each girl named several with whom she had classes. Then Irina had an inspiration. “Boris Stepanovich lgnatenko. He and Vladik knowing each other in Russia before, always talking and drinking vodka when Vladik coming to club.”
“They are being business partners of Brazen Babes,” Polya added. “Boris Stepanovich is knowing if Vladik having other friends. You asking Boris Stepanovich. He not knowing Vladik maybe be murder. Maybe you telling him, not us? Is bad we must telling him we need money for eating and gasses. He seeming happy to have our dancing money. Maybe not liking give some back.”
“How much do you make?” I asked.
Both girls shrugged. “Money for dancing,” said Irina.
“Money men is tucking in our strings,” said Polya. “Is much money, I think. What is called tips. Pretty soon maybe we have paying back and keeping it.”
I really didn’t want to go to a place called Brazen Babes to talk to Mr. Boris Stepanovich Ignatenko. My only contact with exotic dancing had been with a tassel twirler in New Orleans, who sat down at a table full of chemists (and me) and chatted while she drank hot buttered rum at our expense. The rum was my suggestion, and I believe she was reprimanded for not ordering champagne.
Having extracted all the information I could, I thanked the girls for their hospitality, they thanked me for “food and fishes,” and I left.
I didn’t do too well getting back into familiar territory, but once I did, I decided to make a last stop in the day’s investigation. I needed to check out the alibi of Professor Brandon Collins at Jerk’s, not a very prepossessing name, but he had felt that it matched his status at the time he went there.
Jerk’s seemed a presentable enough place if you like neon beer signs and flocks of TVs turned to sports channels. There were few customers that time of afternoon, and it was hard to imagine it full of reeling drunks, which was how the geology professor had described himself. I did note that the customers at the bar were students, or so I assumed. If that was so at night as well, Professor Collins had set a very bad example for young men of college age. I went to the cash register and asked the waitress manning it if she had been here on Saturday night around midnight. She hadn’t, but said the boss would have been. He was
Similar Books
